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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Inside The Audit: Day Two

I actually did not see an auditor in my room at all this morning. I was kind of surprised as I was told I would have two interviews. Interviews and observations should be wrapping up tomorrow.

Most of my coworkers have been interviewed and had at least two observations. Some have had as many as four as of this morning. There could have been more today as well. None of my kids have been interviewed, but some want to volunteer to be interviewed.

I've spent a total of around fifty minutes with auditors. Some of my coworkers have spent a few hours with them. I'm not sure of the procedure for deciding what rooms to enter and when. It really seems kind of random. Some of my kids have yet to be in a room with an auditor. Others had an auditor or two in every single class yesterday. I'm sure there's a method to it, but I'm not seeing it.

To our students' credit, they are being very good during this process. See, students get kind of protective of their teachers. Some of them have joked about making auditors leave or yelling at them, but, thankfully, none have followed through on such plans. Instead, we've heard from shocked auditors that they can't believe how good and calm the kids are. One auditor entered a classroom, stared around the room at the students engaged in independent reading and said with a surprised tone "They're so... quiet!" Well, yeah, they're supposed to be.

And this is the problem right here. Do we need to be audited? No. Yes, our test scores went down last year, the first year they've ever gone that direction. But the issue is that instead of measuring the progress of individual students, the test measures students in group B against students in group W. What's the point? They aren't the same children. Even if group W's scores are lower than group B's scores, isn't it a success if the individual students in group W showed marked success? But we don't measure that. We measure apples to oranges from one year to the next. Then they take our kids and the kids from the "private public" schools like Male and Manual and measure apples to freaking zebras.

They're different. They always will be different until all schools are forced to accept kids regardless of their behavior and academic success. We don't kick kids out. We don't get rid of the bad eggs. We get the kids that are kicked out and pissed off from other schools. We get the ones they don't want. And then their scores reflect on us. And then we get audited and we jump through hoops that will never be demanded of teachers at those other schools. If restaffing is the answer, take the staff from Manual, Male and Butler and spread them out to the struggling schools. If it's obviously the fault of the teachers and those other schools just have good teachers, prove it. Until then, I'll sit happily knowing that I'm doing my best for the students who need it the most. I'm at a school that refuses to turn its back on children.